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Days were in as if a decoir of wine red roses, splurged with a hue of emotions, throbbing heartbeats and frequent blushes.

Chitrolekhaa stained the piano keys with colours today, with hues of pink and mauve and amber and vermillion. She was captivated by a cup of emotions spilled from the rims of twilight, strange enough.

Ajoy da had been talking a great deal these days about her days in Oxford, the Indian girl who was his favourite student at the  university and suddenly committed suicide out of pierce. He had a silent feeling for her, it was not love, which people mistook. It was a deep affection and he was bemoaning miserably. However, Chitrolekhaa remained oblivious to everything. Never did a word enter her ear. She would only notice someone before her with angelic eyes and swift moving hands telling tales of oblivion.

She was enshrouded with strange hues. Her days were somehow vibrant, tinted with the indifferent tinge of melancholy. It all seemed to be a Caprice of a bondage, a weird sense of attachment. Something was happening inside her. Butterflies fumbled in her stomach when she took the teacup to the third room of the first floor. Something wriggled deep down her heart when she stood on the roof and her perpetual loneliness was suddenly broken by the entry of her Ajoy da. Something had happened to her, something she was unaware of, maybe.

Currently, she's playing the piano after ages perhaps.  Jethu was sitting by her side all this while. Once he woke to finally go for sleep(she didn't have a mind to sleep so early), she found a shadow lingering in the threshold.

" aschhi re( hey, I'm coming inside)", Chitrolekhaa could see two eyes in the faint light of candles peeping from the Chandelior. The light was out and the darkness grew unfathomable. And in all the darkness, she smelled smoke, of cigarette perhaps. It was Ajoy da.

She coughed. Once. Twice. And the smoke wasn't there anymore..
~" Hoe, don't you smoke?"
~" Cigarette! Are you mad?If jethu by chance comes to know.."
~" So what, you're modern right,?"
~" You won't understand Ajoy da. I'm a girl. Things are not all the same here as in Oxford."

The rant went on for sometime and then he sat down beside her, too much near. Today, she had found a love poem on a serrated yellow page that slipped from his pocket. Her beat unreasonably fast. Faster.

~" The poem is with you, right? Once in a lifetime, had i written it. Anyway, it's good that you came across it, Chitra , need a help, urgently."

Chitrolekhaa couldn't make out any sense of all this. A long silence followed next.

~ " How do you like English girls," Ajoy da retorted.
~"  What's there to hate them?"
He took out a photograph of a young fair blonde girl, at least ten years younger than Ajoy da. And then, -
" Will you make up Maa for the relation, please Chitra don't let me down".

The Chandelior dimmed. A silence followed, prolonged.

" I'll try Ajoy da, I promises", Chitrolekhaa meticulously held back the ball of tears swallowing up her voice.

" I got to know where she's living in Kolkata, wait I'll tell everything about her to you, how much I know ."

And Ajoy da continued  her miserable tale. The girl's story drenched Chitrolekhaa's eyes as well. She had no one in life but Ajoy da, she had her parents lost, she had frantically searched them, she had squandered in various places in India to find them but finally the resolution was they had passed away.....

Ajoy da continued , Chitrolekhaa was held back, no more listening, only her heart beating fiercely against the bony cage, hurting itself and bleeding wildly. Time had stopped for herself. Somehow in a horizon, their miseries were mingled in a sense of compromise. While Chitrolekhaa had an Anindita to open up, to feel her, the girl here had her Ajoy da snatched to be beloved but maybe love was a more precious feeling.

Ajoy da had stopped and looked straight into her eyes. Composing herself, she said, " Meet her, soothe her, she'll feel better."
~" i will Chitra, tomorrow, i told her so. Basically we wanted you to join us. You'd know her as well "

This was too much for Chitrolekhaa now. At the end of the day, she was also a human of flesh and bones, feelings and emotions. Spending an entire day by her Ajoy da and seeing him getting lost from her onto the curves and crevices of another girl was intolerable to her, but she managed to excuse herself.

~" I think tomorrow I mustn't join you. Both of you need sometime for yourself. Visit some church, you'll feel good in the serenity. Heal your broken wings of love. And I promise, I'll surely meet her and make Monimaa accept this relation."

Chitrolekhaa left. She went to the washroom because even if her red eyes were not noticed by Ajoy da, Anindita would certainly catch hold of them and she did not want to shadow with her darkness and numbness this beautiful phase of the life of others.

On entering the room, Anindita came up excitedly, " Tomorrow Ronojoy and me are going across the city and okay idiot I'm going nowhere without you. Ronojoy wants to meet you as well."

~ " Really?" Chitrolekhaa raised a brow.
~" Yeah, and I'll also tell Mesho that we are on a school freinds' day out , so.."
~" That's the basic issue."
~" Chitra, please.." Anindita almost begged like a child.

Despite certain loathing Chitrolekhaa agreed because staying in home and thinking about how Ajoy da and how his girl were roaming about would only worsen the stupefied condition of her heart. Outing with these people would at least fetch some air for her lungs..

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